2 Bombers Intercepted, Israel Says

JERUSALEM — Two Hamas militants were killed by Israeli commandos Monday night near Hebron as they prepared a bomb attack, Israeli army officials said Tuesday.

In Gaza City, leaders of the militant Hamas movement praised the two as martyrs and accused Israeli forces of deliberately killing them.

Israeli defense officials said the two had been killed after firing on an undercover surveillance unit that found them in a town in the West Bank, Beit Awwa. The officials said that both men were members of the clandestine Hamas military wing and that they ranked high on Israel's most-wanted list.

Two explosive devices were seized in the raid, said Gen. Yitzhak Eitan, commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank. "They were on their way to carry out an attack and were surprised by our forces," Eitan said. "So their attack was averted."

Residents of Beit Awwa said soldiers fired a volley of rockets at the house after exchanging fire with the two militants, who were found dead inside.

The army unit "had a good idea who they were" and hoped to capture them alive, said Deputy Defense Minister Efrain Sneh on Tuesday night. "If terrorists surrender, they don't die."

But earlier comments by Sneh were interpreted by Hamas leaders as confirmation that Israeli forces had intended to kill the two. "There is an automatic contract on anyone from Hamas who commits murderous attacks," Sneh had said, in response to a state radio reporter who asked whether the army purposely killed the men.

A spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, Ismail Abu Shanab, said, "Israel bears full responsibility for this killing, and we say we have the total right to defend ourselves and to react to this criminal act."

One man, Iyad Batat, was said by Israeli authorities to have been a commander of Hamas guerrilla forces in the Hebron area, and he was accused of the shooting death of a border police officer this year. Reporting at the time to a parliamentary committee, Sneh had predicted that those responsible for the officer's death would be "dead within a year."

In the radio interview Tuesday, Sneh said, "I had said that within a year those attackers would die, and see, it took less than a year."

Contacted Tuesday night, Sneh hastened to clarify that he had not meant his statement to imply "that Israel acts like the mob," marking its enemies for execution. Rather, he said he had meant to stress that government policy was to pursue anyone responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians.